Hey y’all! Welcome to Fast Facts for Gen Z. I’m your host, Callie, and I don’t know anything about anything. Come with me on my exploration of the world, and I’ll tell you everything you ever (and never) wanted to know, through the eyes of Gen Z.
Today’s episode: The need for attention, internet friends, and the effect social media has on our lives.
People need attention. We need to have social interaction and to be appreciated. We have social bonds and support networks and friend groups because we need attention. That’s okay! I don’t know how society decided that seeking attention is a bad thing. When kids would act up in elementary school, people would say, “oh, they’re just looking for attention. Don’t give them any attention.” Like, the kid is looking for attention because they need attention. They need someone to talk to them, to listen to them, to appreciate them, to notice them. They’re acting out because they clearly haven’t gotten attention in other ways and they don’t know how else to get noticed. Sure, misbehaving isn’t a good way to get attention, but the kids need to be told that and given attention in other ways.
Basically, seeking attention isn’t inherently a bad thing. On the internet, attention is really really easy to get. You get likes, comments on Instagram, likes and retweets on Twitter. You have streaks on Snapchat, likes and follows on Tiktok. If you’ve got a lot of followers, on any platform, you want that little blue checkmark next to your name that “verifies” that you are who you say you are, and you’re important in some way. And that’s nice! It’s nice to be supported by your friends and have such a wide network of people who think you matter. That’s awesome. We want to be “liked,” so we want you to like our posts. Of course, it’s easy to get negative attention too. You can post an inflammatory tweet and go viral way faster than if you said something chill. If you comment something angry on Instagram, you’ll get comments and likes and tons of attention. And when society has turned likes into the currency of self-worth, I can understand the allure of trolling.
The currency of self-worth. Not my best metaphor, but we’ll roll with it. Because it is, isn’t it? People post on their stories with “like my recent,” meaning to go like their recent posts. They ask their friends to go comment, even if the comment is just an emoji or generic compliment. It’s nice to watch the numbers tick up. You can analyze your different posts and figure out which ones get more likes, and then you can post more of that content. Maximizing your profits, almost. If you run a public account or something other than a personal account, you want engagement. You ask questions in your captions to get people to comment. You ask people to share. You send them to your other platforms. I ask questions on my Twitter! Why? My defense response is to say that I want to gather ideas and see what people want my content to be, but that isn’t true at all. I’m just going to make the content I want to make. So why do I post on Twitter sometimes? Because I want attention. And I deny it because, like I said earlier, we’ve essentially demonized wanting attention. I think that’s because social media, it’s easy to switch from wanting some attention to getting wrapped up in the numbers and basing your whole self-worth off of it.
At risk of sounding like a Boomer, social media can be dangerous. I know, I know. Look, I also mostly like social media. It’s fun. The validation we get from likes and comments is real. But that validation is also short-lived, and most importantly, it’s artificial. Your friend double-tapping your post on Instagram doesn’t mean as much as them texting you to say hi. It just doesn’t. Likes are almost a given in friendships, and when someone doesn’t like your post, you can’t help but wonder if they’re mad at you. This is where the danger starts to arise. If someone usually likes all your posts but suddenly stops, you wonder what happened. If they usually comment, but one time they don’t, you wonder if they’re trying to be passive-aggressive. If your posts usually get lots of likes, but one suddenly flops, you wonder what you did wrong. Ooh, did you catch that? The word “flop.” We have a slang word for when a post doesn’t get as many likes as usual. You wonder why it flopped. What if it was a picture of your face? Is your face bad? Should you stop posting your face? These thoughts can spiral.
When thought spirals like this happen, it’s important to remember what social media is for. Should you stop posting your face? Who are you posting for? Social media is for you, not other people! Post your face if you want!
It’s hard not to care what other people think, but we have to remember who our audience is. My English teachers, both this year and last, always liked to say that everything is argument. You are always trying to convince someone of something. Your math teacher gives a worksheet trying to convince you that math is important, and you answer the questions and try to convince your teacher that you deserve a good grade. When you post on social media, you have to consider your audience and what you’re trying to convince them of. If your audience is other people, that’s okay. Make content for them. But know that if you’re curating yourself for other people, you have to be able to separate yourself from the you in your posts. Otherwise, everyone’s opinions on your content will strike your heart. If your audience is yourself, you don’t need to worry about anyone else. Make content for yourself, and you’ll find that you’re happy with it.
Let’s talk more about getting attention from the internet, because getting attention is fun. These days, getting in touch with the people you admire is easier than ever. You might tweet a celebrity or company and get a real response. You might comment on a YouTube video or say something funny in a Twitch chat and get noticed by a creator you love. I got noticed in a Twitch chat recently, and the rush of dopamine I got from it was honestly a little concerning. That was my inspiration for this episode, actually, because I wanted to investigate why it was so exciting to engage with a complete stranger, and when that engagement lasted less than a second.
Celebrities have been a thing for ages, and it’s always been exciting to talk to them or be near them or even see them. In the age of social media and the internet, nearly anyone can be “famous” in some form of the word, and it’s really not that hard to get yourself noticed, even in a positive way. Being a hater will get you noticed, but that attention will probably come in the form of you being banned or reported, so it’s not a great idea, but I suppose some people don’t care. You would think that now that interactions with famous people are more common, they’d be less exciting, and maybe they are less exciting, but you still get a rush of dopamine when it happens. That’s probably why it’s still fun to be a fan of people, not just their content.
My dad is a good example of being a fan of people, or rather, of personalities. When he watches a movie or TV show, he likes to go watch interviews with the actors and see how their careers have gone. He likes to get to know what they’re like, and his favorites are the ones that either act the most real or have the most well put-together media mask that makes them seem real. I think that before there was so many interview shows and so much mainstream media, it didn’t really matter if celebrities seem real. It was okay for them to be almost otherworldly, because they were famous, they were idols, and the fans didn’t really mind. Now, with social media, we expect to see everyone’s real life, all the time, so celebrities either have to sacrifice their privacy, put up a carefully crafted mask, or refuse the system and be called boring or cold.
I bet it’s hard for them to find a balance. Ironically, in our search for celebrities who seem like real people, we forget that they’re real people who want, and deserve, privacy and respect. It’s hard for normal people to find a balance too. Not as much between privacy and a media persona, but it’s hard to find ways to use social media in a healthy way. We don’t want to base all our value on the likes we get on Instagram, but at the same time, we still want to use social media. We don’t want people to tell us what to do, but without guidance, there are rabbit holes that are easy to fall into. I see people pretty frequently on Instagram say that they’re leaving because it’s toxic, but I also see most of them come back pretty quickly. Because it can be toxic, but it can also be addictive, but it can also be fun.
As per usual, I don’t know what’s right. I don’t use social media that much, but I don’t really have a reason for it. That’s okay. There probably isn’t a right answer. I think it’s just important to be conscious of how social media affects you, and to have compassion for yourself if social media isn’t behaving the way you want. It’s okay.
Thank you for listening to Fast Facts for Gen Z. You can find me @FastFactsPod on Twitter, so feel free to tweet me anything you want to hear about. This is Callie, signing off.
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